I think it looks good actually, giving off dark athmosphere vibes. The proportions are not the same as the reference, it works fine here (maybe even better?). What matters is that it is still readable as the object drawn. (with the portrait (level2) it is more important to get the proportions right). Try to put in more clean tones, make the value of a shape more even. The darkest halftone looks more like it belongs to the shadows to me, it just depends on personal choice where you want to put it. Not much of a help really, but I think the demo's and critique video will explain a lot.

Hi @Brayden Luttrell, nice drawings! The gesture is pretty good in these, especially the first page! I'll do my best to help you further: LINEQUALITY In many of these, especially in the last two images, there are so many lines trying to indicate a single line, that it's hard for me to judge the gesture, since I can't tell which one you intended to draw. If you haven't already I really recommend watching this video and applying what it teaches https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/how-to-hold-and-control-your-pencil/assignments Being able to draw long strokes confidently is a great tool for gesture drawing. EXAGGERATE There will be a lesson later in the course about exaggerating the gesture, but it's good to already now try to exaggerate the poses, to make sure that you don't loose the gesture. As a rule of thumb, I try to make my gesture drawings more (or at least as) gestural than the reference. I do this to consciously counter the common mistake of stiffening up the pose. In the 2nd image, #3 in the bottom row, for example, note how you made the c-curve arc of the body less severe than in the photo reference SIMPLIFY As a rule of thumb try to ignore stuff that don't do much for the gesture. Try to think big to small or important to detail: When you have time over to add another line, try to seek the line that would add the most to the pose. A fun exercise that can help you with simplifying (as well as linequality and exaggeration) is to do 30s quicksketches where you limit yourself to 5 (or fewer) lines (CSI) + head. It´s a challange, but using only 5 lines will force you to find the core gesture. You can look at my paintover for inspiration. Note that I´m not drawing stick figures, but the flow passing through the forms. When you have good control over the big picture, detail can be added more intentionally Hope this helps :) PS I attached an image with some practice tips that really helped me when I took the course. Hopefully they can be of some help to you too :)

Hi @Brayden Luttrell I think the level of simplicity is good, not too much details in the contour; a focus on the larger shapes! I'll do my best to help you further: GEOMETRIC FORMS It would be nice if you built the joints using simple geometric forms, like Marshall does in his examples, with spheres, cylinders and boxes, using crosscontours to clearly show the 3D-forms. I noticed that you've started taking the Figure Drawing Fundamentals Course aswell! Great! It's an awesome course! If I may, I would suggest that you give the figure drawing course your full attention and wait a little with the anatomy course. The things taught in the figure drawing course, like gesture and 3D-forms, are crucial to have in order to fully appreciate the anatomy course. You could think of the figure drawing course as the Anatomy 1 course Here´s a little story from my life: A few years ago I dreamed of being able to draw Tarzan. The Disney movie had been my favorite since I was a baby. I really wanted to learn anatomy, I found proko´s course, and started taking it, but I soon felt that something was lacking: I didn't know the fundamentals well enough. It was difficult to realize that, because it felt like my goal of being able to draw Tarzan was miles away, but I decided to take the figure drawing course anyway. I´m so glad I did! It gave me exactly what I wanted!; being able to draw gestural 3-dimensional figures, from imagination. I learned the most important part of drawing Tarzan! And to my suprise my figures felt quite accurate eventhough I didn´t know anatomy. It was like I had learned the pattern of the human body. I realized that rather than thinking of the figure drawing course being a obstacle in front of the anatomy course, it is more like the Anatomy 1 course. I hope this was helpful :) Keep up the good work!

@Brayden Luttrell Cool! Yes, you're definitely doing it. I really like how they aim at looseness and simplification. This little bit of "messiness" is totally okay at this point. Over practice, you'll see you'll start to slowly gain more confidence to lay down the lines more assertively, but, right now, I'd say don't mind about getting clean results, but instead let your hand run loose in order to capture the feel and energy of each pose. Also, maybe you can go for some exaggeration too. Keep going, do a bunch more of these! And feel free to post them here whenever you want. Let me know if you have any questions. Best regards!